


Take your ghosts with you

by MyGirlfriendsAttic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 01:01:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6494653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyGirlfriendsAttic/pseuds/MyGirlfriendsAttic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam never told him - because how could he? - but every time he looked into Steve Roger’s clear blue eyes, he saw two things, and neither of them were Steve.</p>
<p>First, he saw the endless skies of Iraq, stretching like an impossibly wide blanket over the landscape, the people, over Sam. </p>
<p>Second, he saw a man who had lost a part of himself somewhere along the line of war. In short, Sam saw himself.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Steve wasn't the only one who lost his best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take your ghosts with you

**Author's Note:**

> I recently decided that there were not nearly enough Sam-centric fics out there, and this was what I quickly whipped up to remedy it. I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to leave constructive criticism at the bottom!
> 
> WARNING: There are mentions of a canon compliant death in here as well as subsequent mourning. Neither go into great detail, but they are essential parts of the story. Just letting anyone who may be upset by it know!
> 
> Also I know little to nothing about France, or Swiss cuisine, so keep that in mind.

Sam never told him - because how could he? - but every time he looked into Steve Roger’s clear blue eyes, he saw two things, and neither of them were Steve.

First, he saw the endless skies of Iraq, stretching like an impossibly wide blanket over the landscape, the people, over Sam. 

Second, he saw a man who had lost a part of himself somewhere along the line of war. In short, Sam saw himself. The only difference, he supposed, was Steve still hoped to find that part of himself; Sam’s missing piece was scattered across the Iraqi sky, buried somewhere even Sam couldn’t reach him. 

\---

They criss crossed Europe. In their wake, they left burning HYDRA bases and the rank smell of desperation.

“He’s not dead,” Steve told Sam one night, the darkness on the road pressing into their car from all sides. Steve’s eyes pressed back, black with the shine of night. “I can feel him; he’s here somewhere. He - he saved me. He can’t be dead.”

Sam put his hand on Steve’s tense shoulder, thought of homing missiles. Said, “If he’s out there, we’ll find him.” No use telling Steve that sometimes walking men weren’t necessarily living ones.

\---

In Strasbourg, Sam woke up with eyes piercing him. They looked as gray as the early morning light streaming in, as permeating.

The Winter Soldier didn’t look like Bucky Barnes, but he didn’t look like the Winter Soldier either. The coldness, the numbness, of the eyes were missing; they were replaced with something Sam couldn’t quite identify. A pain maybe. A confusion. 

“You know, I happen to have a buddy who’s been looking for you. Tall, blond, and Captain America. You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you?” Sam groaned a bit as he sat up, rolling out the kinks in his neck and shoulders. Barnes’ eyes tracked him. They felt like ice running along Sam’s arms.

They watched each other for a few silent moments, the crease between Barnes’ eyebrows growing. Sam thought of rivers, slicing through the rock of the land, the current catching people as they fell.

“Tell him to give up,” Barnes said, before he exited through the window.

When Steve returned from his morning run, Sam felt Barnes’ visit bubbling up in his chest, said, “He was here.”

He expected Steve to be angry, for his jaw to set and turn to stone, hurl accusatory words towards Sam. If someone had seen Riley again, and hadn’t brought him back to Sam, that’s what he would have done.  
Instead, Steve didn’t say anything. He sat on his bed, put his head between his knees, and tried to teach himself how to breathe again.

\---

The next morning, Steve decided to hit the road again, to let the endless stretch of tar lead them to some other city, some other skyline.

“We’re going to find him again,” Steve insisted.

“Hey, buddy, I want him to come back as much as you do. But it doesn’t seem like he wants to be found. And I don’t want to say this, but Steve - he might never want to be.”

Steve’s eyes took on a desperate edge - like the blue of a skyline, blotting out a falling body, dipping and swirling around him and - and Steve was speaking now, voice hard and strange compared to his eyes.  
“I know,” he said. “I know, but Sam...how can I not try?”

Sam thought about missing parts and hope.

“You can’t,” he answered. “You can’t not try.”

And really, wasn’t trying a privilege?

\---

“I thought I told you not to follow me,” Barnes said outside of the small cafe that Steve had entered in order to scrounge for lunch. The sun made Sam have to squint up at him - his eyes had the same unplaceable quality as the last time they had met. 

“Well,” Sam said, settling back into the bench he was perched on, “not in quite so many words. And you know Steve - he doesn’t give up quite that easily.”

Sam wondered if he had imagined the pained twitch in Barnes’ eyebrows at “you know Steve.” He decided he hadn’t.

“He’s not mad,” Sam continued softly. “He’s - he’s not mad at you, Barnes.”

“He should be."

“Well, he does a lot of things he shouldn’t.” Sam thought of a gravestone, the name Riley scratched into it, the strange feeling of rest to know where he was buried. “And here,” he continued on impulse. “Take this.”  
Barnes held the paper with the hotel address and room number on it, stared at it, and slid back into the crowded street seamlessly. Like a figure falling into the sky, enveloped and lost within seconds.

When Steve returned, bearing some kind of Swiss sandwiches and coffee, he took one brief look at Sam’s face and sighed. He sat next to Sam on the bench, cupped his coffee between two large hands.

“No such luck, huh?” He said.

“No such luck,” Sam echoed, tilting his back to look up at the blue sky. “But, if it helps any, I think he’ll have a pretty good idea on where to find us. You know, if he ever changes his mind.”

Sam saw the sky, let his eyes drop to darkness, and thought a lot about change.

\---

When Sam dreamt, it was him falling instead of Riley. An explosive pain traveling through his abdomen, the sky rushing past, the hot cake of the Iraqi ground speeding towards him.

He would jerk upwards, panting, pulled awake by some violent tug in his gut reminding him that he was still alive. Some nights Steve lay awake too, breathing heavy and wet in the next bed over. On those nights Sam would turn onto his side, stare through the dark at Steve’s lumpy form, imagine he could see Steve’s burning blue eyes through the pitch black, and feel a resulting burn in his gut. 

And then he would turn onto his back again, put a hand over his stomach, remind himself that he was still alive.

\---

Steve wanted to stay a few more nights at least. Sam just wanted him to stop pacing. 

“I just -” Steve started once, only to stop mid pace and mid word. He closed his eyes for a moment, making Sam wonder if he was still Catholic, if he still could touch God when he reached out. “He was here, in this city, he was in the last one. He’s following us...that has to mean something.”

“Hey, man, we can give him some time. But Steve, even if he does come back, he won’t be the same. He won’t be the Bucky you knew.”

“He doesn’t have to be,” Steve said, the intensity of his words a surprise in the dim hotel room. “He doesn’t - he doesn’t need to do anything. Except come back.” Steve’s eyes were open again, staring right into Sam’s.  
For the first time, Sam saw Steve and nothing else.

Hours later, it occurred to him that maybe he didn’t have to be Sam-after-Riley. Maybe he didn’t have to be anything at all.

\---

Sam was halfheartedly on a mission to get food from the diner that he had frequented way too often in the past two weeks. And hey, Sam didn’t have anything against grease, but he wasn’t quite as eager about consuming it the fourth day in a row.  
He trudged back along the hotel halls, the faded green carpet looking almost hyperreal in the flourescent lighting. A swipe of the key card, a click as the door opened.

“Buck, I … you don’t have to stay. I would never make you stay. But -” the voice cut off abruptly as Sam’s presence became evident.

And there were Steve and Barnes, standing on opposite sides of the room in some strange sort of stand off. Steve had the eyes of a desperate man and Barnes a lost one. 

“Hey,” Sam said softly, looking between them a few times before settling his gaze on Barnes. He gestured towards the bag in his hand. “We have some extra food, if you’d like to eat.” He said the words slowly, carefully, setting the bag on the dresser and gesturing for Barnes to sit.

“Though you might want to hurry,” he added grimly. “This one eats more than a small nation.” He nodded towards Steve, whose desperation was beginning to soften. 

Slowly, deliberately, Barnes sat down.

“Okay,” Sam let some air whoosh from his lungs. “Okay. Quiche, anyone?”  
\---

When Sam dreamt that night, he dreamt of a talking quiche and low voices in a distant room, and not once of a falling sky.

It was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Thoughts and opinions are always welcome. 
> 
> Also, I'm considering writing a sequel, but just wondering your thoughts on that?


End file.
